


the ocean and the moon

by Livali



Category: Mobile Legends: Bang Bang (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, Mentions of blood and violence, also mans the wlw tag is so dry here, gratuitous use of the word 'moon' and moon imagery, miya suffers for three thousand sexy sexy words the fic, somewhat lore compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-15
Updated: 2020-09-15
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:36:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26478835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Livali/pseuds/Livali
Summary: Miya, and the ordeal of learning to feel in a world tearing itself apart.
Relationships: Lesley & Miya (Mobile Legends: Bang Bang), Lesley/Miya (Mobile Legends: Bang Bang)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 13





	the ocean and the moon

**Author's Note:**

> i believe i've mentioned blood and violence in the tags already. it's nothing too much, relatively mild and in intervals, but just to be sure i am warning again. especially if it's someone's trigger.

Miya was born on the night of a raging storm, one that her kind had the misfortune of knowing. The skies wailed and the winds roared and through these the earth moves and crumbles; the loud symphony of noises pierce through everyone’s ears, elves who have survived generations of peace and conflict look above and hold their loved ones close, certain and terrified that this, this sensation crawling under their skins, was a sign of what is to come.

There might have been millions seeing the light of the world for the first time, in the same night, same hour, same minute or same second, and she was none the wiser to assume that she was an outlier. However, years later, as she looks up to the goddess her kind had revered, floating right before her and giving her its blessing, holding and feeling and singing to her, a mere _sacrifice_ , in the middle of all this bloodshed—this is the fight of their lives, born out of humanity and orckind’s immense distrust and hatred for their adversaries—there is no resistance to the next words that echo in her head.

_All this time, have I known that it would come to this?_

With ease she takes in a deep breath and pushes the nock of her arrow against her bowstring, it glows brightly like a beacon, so bright that her fellow moon elves come out of hiding and glance in her direction, their eyes widening as they see their goddess looming over her person.

She lets go, and the light her arrow exudes is blinding. It shoots _right through_ the burning forest and as her enemies scatter at the unfamiliar power, she feels a voice humming in the back of her mind. The relaxing sensation travels across her bones, under her skin and it seeps into her soul and makes it its home.

The others look at her as if she was a savior. One man mutters _the moon god incarnate_ under his breath, and she is not sure if this is something she can deny. Morale is revitalized and together, with this surety that they had a celestial force by their side, her countrymen will take this place back no matter what remains of it.

* * *

King Estes offers her his arm out of courtesy a year later, trudging along a path to the temple bearing witness to the bustling entirety of the Emerald Woodland. _This,_ this was an honor, Miya thinks, to fulfill her mission and see the birthplace of the very first generation of her kind.

High and above, the night sky is dark and calm and the image of the moon flickers prominently in the distance. He tells a story of a time when elvenkind was brought to near extinction, _the Second War_ , of creatures where all nightmares wake and if she stared long enough, she will find darkness that has long been lurking in the collective conscious of man, that devour and eclipse between dreams and replace them with despair. 

Estes hovers nervously at a respectable distance beside her, letting go of their linked arms and reaching out to the moon as if it was right at his grasp. His eyes are wise, but tired from years and years and _years_ of abiding by his duties. His gaze drifts over to all of her and she understands, that she is being analysed, because he has to lead again and their country needs not only a king, but a figure to look up to.

She was a candidate, the proclaimed hero of the land, with her increasingly questionable mortality and a deity occupying every corner of her soul.

Miya blinks, feeling a presence hovering beyond her, blue flames flutter at the edges of her vision; something familiar ebbs at the dips of her shoulders, and the raw and intimidating power is enough to bring her to her knees.

She feels every bone in her body shaking when she touches the embers, and as the tremors settle and return into the back of her mind, she understands what she must do next.

* * *

The blessings given to her grow stronger over time. At her peak, there is a gentle force cradling and strengthening her heart, the mana in her veins is more potent, and there is no longer a difference in which part of her belongs to the god in her soul or to her own, as at last they are one and the same.

She navigates through country and country as a diplomat, to differentiate what is enemy and ally for what is coming—what and when it is she does not know yet, but there is a soft voice whispering by the shell of her ears and it reverberates loudly in her mind like a church’s bell—that this is something she has to do.

Her travels in between regions and borders are pleasant. By morning she cleans up camp and polishes her weapons, browsing through store-bought trinkets from the places she visits to keep the warm experiences close and to remember the parts of her that still remain mortal. As dusk arrives, she finds clearings in between the harsh environment inevitable in her journeys, gazing at orange skies and enjoying the waning umbra.

When the moon is full, she prays to it for her people’s prosperity and safety, finding solace in its comforting radiance.

One night en route to a small village at the south of Gorge, she thinks about her hopes and dreams—or her lack of it. It is uncomfortable, suffocating, and she feels her limbs coiling in apprehension. This is _new_ , something she was not taught to face, and she fears the answers will long be lost before she has any opportunity to find them.

Her musings pull and tug at the fraying edges of her consciousness, feeling her anxiety like a snake ensnaring her waist. She wills herself to sleep, and is grateful when her body turns slack. As her eyes droop and the world disappears slowly behind her eyelids, one last message appears in the depths of her skull.

_Rest._

* * *

Lesley Vance was incredibly hard to read.

Miya wants to know the truth to all of her secrets. She knows when it all began, on one autumn morning by the Grandrock borders, where she decides to settle down for a while—for how long she hasn’t decided yet—before heading towards the Moniyan capital.

She sees a red-haired woman, trailing quietly after a ginger-haired boy by the food stands mangled with the buzzing crowds. Miya loses sight of them as they blend in with the masses, so she stalls. Suddenly there is one brown eye staring into her own, and she remembers the reassuring words sent from the last vestiges of the god in her soul. She decides, with this newfound courage, it was alright to make friends. Lips curving into an amicable smile, she waves. The rest is history.

Their meetings are at strange hours—Lesley disappears for days at a time, while on her own she is occupied with exploring the sights of the city and seeking information—and they eventually develop their own routine.

Sometimes they talk about the easy parts in each other’s lives over a cup of coffee (and Miya reckons, at her first sip, that coffee is bitter and she doesn’t see the charm in it the same way her friend does). At other times it is brisk walks by the city bay where the water is clear and air is fresh. Lastly, there were conversations on the rooftops, where the night is passed with intimate discussions with even more intimate details, where the only ears listening to their woes were the trees and the light of the moon.

The last place they visit together before she leaves for the capital is a graveyard ways off the city, far from the hectic traffic and the scurrying of civilians. She can’t help but feel that she is intruding in on her companion’s time of mourning. The sniper assures her she isn’t, and that her father, her first one, would have welcomed her here.

There is nothing to hide in this place, she thinks, where the reminder of death and mortality is in every direction she walks. The face her friend adorns is her truest one, and she oddly finds herself resonating with what she sees, that the bits and pieces that make Lesley Vance are only held together by sheer willpower. The cracks grow, the pieces divide, and the parts that fall away disintegrate into nothingness, but despite that she still stands and fights.

Lesley kneels, her rifle and the flowers they bought from the market safely perched next to the tomb at her front. Moments of silence pass between them, the seconds ticking closer and closer to midnight by the second.

“On that day… the boy you saw me following was my brother,” She says with ease, as if they had been talking to each other the entire time. And Miya feels that they have, with her watching avidly the little vignettes of her friend’s life, letting her in her small world of sights to see and stories to share, honouring her with the chance to see more parts of the woman apart from the stony façade and small talk.

The elf shifts on her toes at the unfamiliar turn in the conversation. She had told her before, how she hides in the shadows because she was not supposed to be there, how her presence had reminded the little boy of the inheritance he had no desire to carry, but Harley was the last good thing in her life and she’d be damned if she lost him too. “Yeah. You told me that.”

“I have.”

“Aren’t you sad?” She asks, there had only been the two of them the entire time—she decides to not voice the fact that she sees herself in her—thinking back to the months spent all alone out in the world, with only her thoughts the means to conversation before she settled here.

“Not anymore.” There is a small curl to Lesley’s lips at the concern laced in her question, and her one good eye never leaves the grave. “You are here, right with me. I think that is enough.”

A warm sensation blooms in her chest, Miya doesn’t know what to make of it so she pushes it into the back of her mind. She looks above, the moon is full, and a smile grows on her face.

This is the first time in years she prays for only one person.

* * *

Lightborn is as grandiose as the stories of her people say.

The elements here are overwhelming, and Miya feels as if her exterior was a sieve through which her soul is leaking, magnetized to the magic fused with the air she breathes.

Civilians and practitioners alike are familiar of what flows within their kingdom, drawing power from the capital’s leylines as if it was a practice engraved in their history since the dawn of time. The affluence of it all frightens her; a chill travels under her skin, into her nerves, and the protruding slopes of her ribcage until it reaches her beating heart.

Not all of this was achieved peacefully.

The taste of blood and iron is fresh on the tip of her tongue, scars from war remain etched over her skin, and the agony of a nation is branded into her very soul. The memory of her form standing over the altar is vivid, of the veins that emerged from her pale skin as the pumping of blood rings in her ears, of snowflakes falling from the sky that turn red with the blood of her people once it touches the earth.

Of the ghost that whispered poetry into her ears as she took her dying breath— _fear not, first love of the moon, it is not your time yet._

In that moment, she was both a newborn child drowning in the fluids from her own lungs, and a grown woman withering away in the grand scheme of things, lying witness to the corpses of her countrymen.

She shakes her head and takes a deep breath. The castle doors are close, no need for distractions.

The empire had no hand in the lives lost that night. There was something far more sinister. One to end years of hatred between every species on the planet and close the divide of long-parted allies, in fear of being wiped out of what is to come.

(On the castle gazebo, Princess Silvanna Aurelius tells her of a story passed down in her family for generations. A time humanity found themselves in an impasse between the battle of gods, of creatures where all nightmares wake and if she stared long enough, she will find darkness that has long been lurking in the collective conscious of man, that devour and eclipse between dreams and replace them with despair.)

* * *

The day the sky dies is a day everyone remembers. It’s still all blurry from that moment, talented warriors at the light’s behest gawk into the never-ending abyss, searching for the one spark, the drop of water in a scorching desert, the last reminder of hope that this was something they could turn from and come out of in one piece.

She crouches at the edge of the castle walls and stares down at the bodies at her feet. Some still cling to their weapons, some still had their eyes blown wide at the shock of it all, some had made peace long before their lives were taken from them. Though in the end they were all the same.

There were no caskets to place them in, no graves to bury, and there are only the voices of citizens begging their loved ones to open their eyes and return to the land of the living. It is painfully reminiscent to that time a year ago, when her people were pleading for mercy at the hands of their makers.

She sees the princess in the distance clashing blades with a young man, there are tears in her eyes and the boy’s lips coil at the sight of it. In his eyes linger the croon of old souls, and Miya can’t help but wonder if his own was with them all the same.

She ignores the sounds across the city when she hears footsteps behind her, and watches as Lesley Vance’s form walks beside the trebuchet over an abandoned tower. The sniper makes her way towards her spot in her usual swagger. Her hair catches fire in the dim light, and she can’t help but stare.

The woman’s one eye falls to where the archer is sitting, and Miya attempts a smile. Lesley sees right through it.

“Is this what you meant by ‘world changing conflict’?” She says, tone even as she sits beside her. The elf glances at her—sometimes she was the shadow of Harley Vance, sometimes she was the cold assassin with one-worded replies and mysteries in clouded mirrors, and rarely she was Lesley Vance, a girl who had so much taken away from her and was trying to live with what she had left; but in the end it was all parts of her, and Miya _knows_ that she deeply appreciates all three in the same capacity.

“Well this time, there’s no god to give miracles and... you know. I’m not dying from blood loss.”

“I see,” she mutters and her words trail into the air. They both fall silent in favor of watching the rest of the battles taking place.

Miya had acquainted with a lot of Silvanna’s companions a week prior, and her eyes light up in recognition when she sees the demon hunters from the monastery and a leonin boy holding back an entire army of undead, backs pressing into each other for support or reassurance, she cannot tell.

Natalia and Kimmy are scaling a clock tower, and moments later a body falls (very much not theirs) as the hands tick towards the last quarter.

Fanny is _soaring_ , her knuckles straining white against the ropes that allow her to fly as she takes out aerial enemies flawlessly.

Tigreal was at the sanctuary center, his mighty shield holding back the tide of demons, afraid to incur the wrath of the gods had one made it through.

Her allies from the rest of the empire and places she had gone to before are there too, swinging their weapons as if this battle was their last.

All this time, had she known that it would come to this?

“Her name is Alice,” Miya announces, a hard edge to her voice that bellies her wariness. The churning in her gut is familiar, almost equal to the sensation of the old resident in her head, of a god frantically digging its nails into the depths of her skull at any mention of the name. The red-haired woman’s mouth quirks into a frown as the elf utters her title. “Queen of the Apocalypse.”

“And yet she will still fall,” Lesley murmurs as her attention flickers down to the small gap between their hands, and the heat in the white-haired woman’s blood spreads like a shockwave. The assassin inches closer, splaying her gloved fingers over hers, and the leather is more comforting than it should be. “You have done enough. Now let us do the rest.”

She should listen, because she was right—but the name of their enemy makes her ill, it makes her want to scream and to choke and to cry. _Alice. Alice. Alice._ The name of the woman scornful enough to enact this fate on millions upon millions, who had given the one question for this land that no creature can answer.

The world had once forsaken the Queen of the Apocalypse. Now they were paying the price.

On the days after her awakening, she dreamed of pitch-black sunsets and unending midnights, slowly becoming more aware to the world’s gradual descent into decay and the acceptance of the fate she had chosen. The questions of her ambitions are white noise in her mind, and it all makes for one extremely confusing and suffocating cacophony of sounds that piece and hold her together. A sorry attempt.

The least she can do was pretend. For a while she can pretend she wasn’t entrusted with the responsibility of a lifetime, and she wasn’t a messenger for the incoming ruin. There were no deities breathing down on her neck, and there were no gods running their fingertips at the edges of her soul to rid her of her guilt.

Only the calm in her mind, and the weight of her companion’s palm on her own.

If the world has survived this long, then it can wait.

* * *

The myths in elven folklore pale in comparison to reality, she reckons. Her friends and allies are right behind her as she fights, their forces move forward and forward, and while there was no end in sight, their spirits were high and their hopes even higher. Thousands of arrows are sighted from above, and everyone falls under cover to protect themselves.

As the barrage ends, everyone is up again on their second wind. Lesley is smirking right next to her, reloading her rifle, and as she looks into her eye it is aflame and _alive_ and for first time in her life she feels whole.

Together, with courage in their hearts, they run shoulder-to-shoulder towards the end of the world.

**Author's Note:**

> originally written: september 2019
> 
> im not part of the fandom anymore, but i felt bad for leaving it especially since the writing here is decent, so i finished and tweaked it up a bit!! the original is actually two thousand words shorter, but i dont want to talk about how the word count got to /this/ lol
> 
> please leave your thoughts if you liked this!! it's very appreciated, since i haven't written in a year and would like to hear your perspective!!


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